


Bonds of Science

by TeamHPForever



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1891689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamHPForever/pseuds/TeamHPForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kaiju threat over, Agent Coulson comes to Newton and Hermann with an offer to join SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonds of Science

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back, soon after seeing Pacific Rim for the second or third time, and didn't post it for some reason. I wanted to know what would happen if two of my favorite Science Couples met and this is what happened.

It’s only three days after they cancel the apocalypse when Newton and Hermann walk into their lab to find it already occupied. The man looks better off than most these days, clean and muscular and dressed in a perfectly tailored suit. Newton gets the sense immediately that this man would have gotten along well with Stacker and has to swallow hard.

He stands next to Newton’s samples like he belongs there, not even flinching at the dried entrails still scattered on the floor. He hasn’t quite gotten around to cleaning them up yet.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he says. Clearly American.

“What are you doing in here?” Hermann asks, forgoing the usual human pleasantries. He looks the intruder up and down, limping over to his equipment to make sure it hasn’t been interfered with.

The man doesn’t seem at all turned off by Hermann’s abruptness. He looks almost amused. “I’ve heard that your time here is limited. I’ve come with an offer.”

“I like to know the names of the people I’m talking to,” Newton says. “Call me Newt. Who are you?”

“My name is Agent Coulson. SHIELD sent me to offer you both positions in our organization. You’ll have all the equipment you need. Your own laboratory.”

“In the States?” Hermann asks with a note of scorn.

“Yes.” Agent Coulson draws himself up a bit taller. “There are many organizations that would love to have the two of you. Some of them will not ask as kindly as I am.”

That sounds to Newton like a threat, but he isn’t sure how to react to it. He has to admit that his own laboratory sounds nice. He’s been working with Hermann in this place for years, forced to build most of their own equipment with whatever scrap they could find.

Agent Coulson pulls a square phone out of his pocket, holding it up and tapping the screen a few times. A hologram appears above it, spinning slowly so that they could see everything. “This will be your laboratory,” he says.

The sight of it takes Newton’s breath away. It’s easily three times the size of this place, and filed to the brim with equipment that he wouldn’t have in his wildest dreams. “Are you serious?” he almost squeaks.

Even Hermann looks a little awestruck. He tears his eyes away from his chalkboard, still scattered with equations that he can’t seem to bear to erase, and wanders over closer to the display.

“You have my word,” Agent Coulson says. “This will be yours.”

“What do you want in return?” Hermann asks. His free hand is raised slightly, like he’s about to reach out and touch the hologram.

Agent Coulson shrugs. “We ask only to have access to your research. And that you work exclusively for us.”

Newton nods, having expected nothing less. “Can we have some time to think about it?”

“Of course.” Agent Coulson pulls a card out of his pocket and sets it on the table, away from Newton’s samples. Next to the phone, the hologram still circling above it. “Give me a call when you’re ready to talk.”

Before either of them can say anything more, Agent Coulson sweeps from the room. Only the phone and the card are left as proof that he’d ever been there.

***

“The Jaegars defeated the last of the kaiju and destroyed the breach,” Bruce says. He’s sitting on a bench in Tony’s lab, tapping away on a laptop while Tony fiddles with something.

“Did they? Good,” Tony replies absentmindedly, touching something that sends up a spray of sparks. He doesn’t seem to notice. Dum-E twitches where he’s standing by with the fire extinguisher.

“You don’t have to be bitter.” Bruce chuckles. “Just because we couldn’t help.” He puts the laptop aside and comes up behind Tony, wrapping his arms around his fellow scientist’s waist.

In the beginning, they’d tried. With the first kaiju, however, it became obvious that these creatures were not something they could fight. The Avengers had defeated more alien threats in their time together than Bruce ever wanted to think about, but the kaiju were something completely different.

Natasha took one look at the thing and dropped her knife.

The Hulk fought with all his strength without ever penetrating the creature’s thick hide.

Thor threw his hammer—hitting the creature directly in the head—and it didn’t even flinch.

Hawkeye took his usual perch and shot it full of arrows. Only the exploding ones seemed to do any damage…when they didn’t just glance off.

Steve threw his shield and it embedded itself in the creature’s crest just above its neck. There it stayed for the rest of the fight.

The strongest of Tony’s blasters didn’t even faze it.

When the creature was brought down three days later, it wasn’t by the Avengers.

“We couldn’t fight them,” Tony says. He pushes away whatever it is he’s working on (it looks like a miniature version of the Iron Man blasters) and turns around to face his boyfriend.

“Now we don’t have to.” Bruce kisses his forehead softly. “We helped the best we could. You came up with the blaster technology for the Jaegars, and my idea led to the drift technology. We just weren’t on the front lines this time.”

Personally, Bruce thinks he prefers this behind-the-scenes kind of saving the world.

“They couldn’t have done it without us,” Tony says, puffing up in that way he sometimes does. Bruce chuckles again and kisses him properly.

***

“What do you think?” Newton asks, staring at the business card. It’s still sitting on the table where Agent Coulson had left it.

“We just canceled the apocalypse,” Hermann replies. “Do we really want to move from one organization to another without giving it adequate thought?”

Newton shrugs. “But the _lab._ ”

“It is well-equipped,” Hermann admits grudgingly. Newton doesn’t fail to notice the way that Hermann is staring hungrily at the projection from the phone.

Hermann’s free hand is resting against the edge of the table, gripping it like he’s still holding himself back from reaching out to try to touch it. Newton shifts over slightly to put his hand over his friend’s.

Newton waits for Hermann to look up at him before he speaks. “I know we never talk about this but we drifted together. I saw…” He trails off but he can see a flash of recognition in his friend’s eyes.

Hermann’s voice is softer than normal as he says, “What do you want from me, Newt?”

“I’m going to join SHIELD. You and I both know that this is the best offer we’ve got. And that Agent Coulson is right. Sooner or later someone else is going to come for us and they aren’t going to ask as nicely.” Newt pauses, gauging Hermann’s response. He remembers the images in the drift—the way Hermann had looked at him with the deep undercurrent of love always hovering in the background, always when Newton’s back was turned. Newton takes a deep breath. “I want you to come with me.”

“Why would I do that?” Hermann scoffs.

“Because you love me.” Newton’s reply comes out in a sing-song voice but he can’t help it. He feels jittery, like sparks are bursting just beneath his skin.

Hermann pauses. “I’ll come with you.”

Newton slides his fingers between Hermann’s. “I guess we’d better give them a call then.”

“In a minute.” Hermann grabs Newton’s collar with his free hand and tugs him in for a kiss. It’s soft and a little sloppy, but it’s a start.

***

Bruce is reading through reports on the last three kaiju to be defeated—Scunner, Raiju, and Slattern—when Agent Coulson comes up the elevator. Bruce looks up from his spot on the couch and pushes the screen aside.

“Where’s Stark?” Coulson asks in way of greeting.

Bruce smirks. “Where do you think?”

“When he emerges, tell him that SHIELD has recruited the two scientists responsible for closing the breach,” Coulson continues. He wanders to the bar and pours himself a drink without saying a word.

“What does that have to do with us?” Bruce pulls the file in front of him again, this time skimming through it for mentions of the scientists. Newton Geiszler and Hermann Gottlieb.

“Just want the both of you to know in case you’re ever working together someday. We’re putting them up at SHIELD headquarters but they seem to be fascinated by your technology. They’ve been roughing it out there at the Shatterdome.” Coulson sets the now empty glass aside on the counter and comes back around to the couch. “Just tell Stark.”

Bruce nods. “I will, Agent.”

Tony finally emerges from his lab six hours later, hair sticking in every direction and smelling vaguely of smoke. Bruce waits until he’s downed his first cup of coffee before he makes the announcement.

“What does that have to do with me?” Tony asks as his second cup brews. When he starts to hold it up to his lips, Bruce steps behind him and pulls it away.

“Coulson wanted us to know in case we ran into each other. Or had to work together someday.” Bruce dumps the cup down the sink, risking Tony’s wrath.

“I don’t work with anyone.” Tony scowls at him, reaching for the coffee machine again. “What did you do that for?”

“Sleep. You need it.” Bruce grabs Tony’s hands and pulls him out of the kitchen in the direction of their bedroom.

***

If Newton fears that Coulson had been lying to them about the lab, all of his fears are assuaged when the helicopter arrives for them.

It is black and high-tech, with a silver logo painted on the side. Newton climbs in without hesitation and is surprised when Hermann follows him just as easily. Then again, he shouldn’t have been.

When he and Hermann drifted, he’d felt Hermann’s thoughts when Stacker told the mathematician to go after Newton—his fear that he wouldn’t find him alive despite his deep instincts that his best friend was okay. He hadn’t been afraid of the helicopter at all then. It was just a means to get to Newton faster.

They hold hands as they sit side-by-side in the back. The woman sitting in the pilot’s seat doesn’t say a word the whole time. The rest of the helicopter is empty, leaving Hermann and Newton only each other to talk to.

“What are you going to work on?” Newton asks, realizing that he isn’t sure he knows the answer to that question himself. What would their new employers be expecting?

“Whatever project I am given,” Hermann responds, watching the ocean pass by beneath them. He almost expects to see the water surge over the scaly back of another kaiju rising from the depths. “Likely starting with a paper on the physics of the breach.”

Newton isn’t sure he’s ready to hear his boyfriend prattle on about his breach equations so soon, but he nods. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without kaiju specimens to study. I suppose I could work with models…”

“We will have the technology for the models,” Hermann points out.

“I know we will but they’re still not the same as actual specimens.” Newton had always preferred to get his hands dirty, to study things directly rather than working with imperfect models.

“It’s unnecessary,” Hermann continues in his exasperated tone that means an argument is brewing. Newton rises to the challenge and they spend the rest of the flight arguing until, after they land, Newton leans in and presses a kiss to Hermann’s lips. He was in the middle of a sentence—what, exactly, Newton isn’t sure—but he freezes for a moment before kissing his boyfriend back.

A car—black like the helicopter with the same silver logo on each side—waits for them on the tarmac. Newton and Hermann climb in the backseat to find Coulson up front.

“I’m glad to see the two of you again,” Agent Coulson says, smiling slightly. Newton feels like that’s a common thing with him.

“Glad to be here,” Newton replies for the both of them. The city flashes by around them and, before he knows it, the car is pulling through a guarded gate and stopping in front of a huge, tinted-glass building.

Agent Coulson leads them inside and up the elevator to the thirty-second floor. He stops outside a door and Newton enters. He freezes just over the threshold, convinced that there must be some mistake.

The lab is huge, easily four or five times their room in the Shatterdome, and filled with equipment. There are things that he can’t identify but can’t wait to try out. At the back sticking out against the bright chrome and black of the technology, is a line of chalkboards for Hermann. It looks even better in person than as a hologram.

“We know that you prefer to work with chalk,” Agent Coulson explains as Hermann makes a bee-line for the boards and rubs a piece of chalk between his hands. “We had the room specially arranged for the both of you, but if you would prefer your own private labs…”

“It’s fantastic,” Newton says. He hovers inside the door, not sure what he wants to touch first. He settles for the computer in the center of the room. It produces holographic displays when he touches the interface.

“I’ll leave you to get settled. There are rooms for you downstairs with the agents if you’ll be needing them, or you can find a place in town. I’m sure I could find something suitable.”

Newton pulls his gaze away from the computer long enough to focus in on Agent Coulson and nod. “I think we’ll need some time to think about it.”

Coulson nods and disappears, closing the door behind him. Left to his own devices, Newton flits around the lab, touching everything and pressing all the buttons he can find. He squeals out loud when he discovers that an interface at the back of the room can produce perfect 3-D holographic models of every kaiju that ever came through the breach.

“How can you be messing with those chalkboards when there’s all this _stuff_ around?” Newton asks as he returns to the main computer.

“You know that I prefer to work the old-fashioned way,” Hermann grumbles, staring at his equations with his forehead wrinkles. The chalkboards are already covered in numbers, though dealing with what Newton doesn’t know. They’d already solved the problem of the breach and stopped the kaiju from coming through. There’s no reason for Hermann to be predicting attacks anymore.

“Fine.” Newton turns back to his computer, smiling. He knows he’ll have Hermann’s full attention later. “I get it, dude.”

***

Bruce frowns, studying the plans that Tony has for a suit of armor designed for the Other Guy. It isn’t a suit of _armor_ so much as a few plates that will at least give him some protection. The main problem is whether the Other Guy will actually accept wearing it enough to physically put it on.

“Maybe I could make it so that it sizes itself automatically when you transform,” Tony suggests half to himself as he tinkers with what appears to be a mass of wires and explosives.

“What do you need armor for anyway?” Barton asks from the corner. Tony made him some new arrows and he’d just arrived to pick them up. “Isn’t it kind of, you know, built in?”

Bruce ducks his head. Tony glares at Barton and says, “What’s wrong with a little extra protection?”

“Nothing. It just seems unnecessary. These the arrows?” He points at a stack of them on the edge of the table, silver points glinting in the overhead lights.

“Those are the ones,” Bruce replies. Barton gathers them up in his arms and hurries out probably eager to run down to SHIELD’s shooting range and try them out.

Bruce nudges the display aside and it disappears into the air. “You know Barton has a point. I don’t need the armor.”

“But you want it.” Tony doesn’t even look it up. He starts to twist red wires into an intricate fashion. “And if you want it, I’ll build it.”

Bruce smiles and slips onto the stool on the other side of Tony’s worktable. “Do I want to know what that is?”

“It’s an explosive device. Meant to be thrown into a kaiju’s mouth so that it explodes inside.” Tony adds a black wire to the mix.

“Tony, there aren’t any more kaiju,” Bruce says gently.

Tony doesn’t look up. “I know. Doesn’t mean there won’t be a use for it, though.”

Bruce sighs and moves off the stool, stretching his back and shoulders. He’s just turned around and started up the stairs when an explosion throws him to the floor. His heart jumps to his throat and he battles down the Other Guy as he flips over.

He can feel the heart racing through his veins, the deep ripping of his muscles, but it calms when he sees that Tony is okay.

His eyebrows have been singed off and the entire lab is covered in a black dust. Not to mention the small fires breaking out everywhere, Dum-E dashing to put them out with the fire extinguisher clasped in his claw. JARVIS turns on the overhead sprinklers.

Bruce hurries across and grabs his boyfriend, dragging the shell-shocked billionaire out of the lab and upstairs. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to work there for a while,” Bruce says as they cough the smoke from their lungs.

“No,” Tony admits.

***

Newton and Hermann have been working in their new lab at SHIELD for a week when they walk in to find that they’re not alone.

One man is already bent over an empty space at Newton’s side of the lab. He has short black hair and a rather impressive goatee. Something glows blue in the middle of his chest, underneath the dark T-shirt he wears. He chatters away to someone called “Jarvis” which Newton can only assume is the name of the other man.

He stands in the corner, quietly and unobtrusively, wearing a simple purple shirt and khakis. Of the two of them, he looks the most like a scientist.

Before Hermann and Newton can demand to know what they’re doing in the lab, Agent Coulson steps up from the back and says, “Dr. Gottlieb, Dr. Geiszler, this is Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner. They worked in a laboratory in Stark Tower that was recently destroyed.” Coulson glances over his shoulder at Stark. “They’re going to be working here for a few days, while the renovations are finished.”

“Why here?” Hermann speaks up and Newton braces himself for one of Hermann’s long-winded rants that he requires a quiet and empty workspace. “Surely Mr. Stark has any number of labs that he could use.”

“My Malibu house was destroyed by the kaiju,” Tony explains without looking up. “I haven’t had time to rebuild yet. This is the only lab within reasonable distance with the power to run JARVIS. Can you pull up a model of Scunner?”

Newton opens his mouth to reply that yes, he could, but he isn’t about to without more answers. But he doesn’t have time because, in that moment, a cool British voice emanates seemingly from the very air. “Yes, sir,” it says and the asked-for model appears above the interface.

“How…how does that work?” Newton asks in spite of himself. He wanders close, leaning over to examine the interface. He’s been working in here all week and he’s _sure_ that nothing in this room can talk.

“JARVIS?” Tony seems to puff up with pride. “I developed him.” He goes on with a very long and technical explanation of the development process and how the system works and how he’d incorporated it into each of his houses along with the Iron Man suit. By the time he pauses to take a breath, Newton feels like his head is spinning.

He looks around, only now realizing that Coulson has disappeared and Hermann is standing next to Banner.

Not just standing next to him.

_Talking_ to him. The two of them are laughing and smiling. Hermann is writing on his chalkboards just like any other day and Banner is fiddling with a holographic screen hanging in front of him as he sits on an empty table.

“What is it that you do?” Tony asks, pulling Newton out of his stupor.

Newton shakes his head. “I’m an alien biologist, among other things. I studied kaiju specimens. And drifted with two of them.”

“You’re one crazy dude.” Tony makes a noise that might have been laughter and then pulls a package of something out from underneath the desk. “Blueberry?”

Newton shrugs and accepts a handful. “Sure.”

***

Banner felt hesitant when Coulson suggested that they work in the lab for SHIELD’s two new scientists. He knows that scientists tend to be territorial—Tony is living proof of that—and he didn’t want to encroach on anyone else’s territory.

Plus the Other Guy doesn’t tend to take well to strangers.

Which is why he’s surprised how well the four of them take to working together. Geiszler seems to take to Tony almost instantly and it isn’t long before the two of them are chattering away about JARVIS’s programming.

Gottlieb sounds like a quiet one, eager to just get his work done without any distractions. Banner can respect that. He stays in the corner, glancing up every so often to take in the other scientist’s equations.

They’ve been working together in silence for about an hour when Banner glances up and feels the deep pang that something is wrong. He shifts in his chair, squinting at the chalkboards and spots the mistake.

Gottlieb is staring at his chalkboard, a deep frown in his face. He grabs his glasses from where they hang on his neck and pushes them up over his nose.

Bruce stands up and angles himself so he can see better, trying not to encroach on the mathematician’s space. “It’s the first equation,” he murmurs. “You’ve included the gravity of this planet but it isn’t taking into account the gravity of the kaiju’s dimension.”

Gottlieb glances at him, expression impossible to read, and then climbs onto his ladder to make a few changes.

“Thank you,” he says.

Bruce nods in response and returns his attention to the computer screen in front of him. SHIELD wants him to investigate the possibility that humans can produce a batch of miniature kaiju. Coulson and Fury want to know what to look for, if anyone were to give it a shot.

“What are you working on?” Gottlieb asks after another bout of silence.

Banner explains, frowning at the screen. It doesn’t seem to be possible, which will be good news for Coulson and Fury, and bad news for whatever higher-ups are hoping to use his research to build a kaiju army first.

“Don’t tell Newton that,” Gottlieb says, his voice surprisingly light and full of laughter, “he’ll want to know everything so he can keep them as pets.”

“Newton?” Banner asks.

Gottlieb nods toward where Geiszler is working with Tony. “He studied them at the Shatterdome. Even drifted with a couple. He’s a little obsessed.”

Bruce shudders, not sure why anyone would want to share minds with such a monstrous creature. Not that he’s really one to talk, but it isn’t the same. “Maybe he should take a look at my research.”

Gottlieb shakes his head. “Seriously, if there isn’t a way then he’ll find one anyway just to prove that he could do it. Let me take a look.”

Banner pushes the screen over in front of him. “Thank you, Dr. Gottlieb.”

“Call me Hermann,” the mathematician says as he squints at the screen. He pokes at it tentatively, like he isn’t quite sure what to do with it.

It isn’t long before Banner finds himself laughing with Hermann in the corner. The mathematician seems stiff and reserved but he’s also incredibly intelligent. Once he admits that he’s with Newton and it comes out Bruce is with Tony, they realize that they have more in common than they thought. It isn’t long before they’re trading stories about their manic scientists.

“They’re looking at us,” Bruce murmurs, glancing quickly up at where Tony and Newton are watching them gathered around a large model of a kaiju.

“Newton does not believe I am capable of making friends,” Hermann admits. “We did not always get along as well as we do now.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Banner switches the screen around so that Hermann can see it more easily. “By the way, your projected gravity is off. You have 2.3 times Earth’s and it has to be at least 2.6 times stronger.”

Hermann looks taken aback as he glances over his shoulder at his chalkboards. “By Jove, you’re right.”

***

Tony and Newton glance at each other from where they watch their boyfriends. “Have you ever seen this?” Newton asks.

“Never.” Tony looks genuinely confused. “Bruce usually keeps to himself. He has…an explosive personality.”

“Hermann just doesn’t like people.” Newton rubs a hand over the kaiju tattoos on his arms. “Or that’s what I thought. Guess we’ll have to get used to working together. Think you could build me my own JARVIS?”


End file.
